How many nukes would it take to destroy a city?

Originally posted by StellarX
[They abandoned preparation for DEFENSE while scaling up their means for OFFENSE.

That's how deterrence works.

...Not NEARLY as much as creating offensive nuclear weapons and conventional forces made it likely to happen.

See above.

Why is it so fantastical to believe that countries able to build nuclear weaponry can not build in concrete and alloy materials protective
measures to safeguard their populations is very hard for my to understand.

- he's very good on the politics, economics and practicalities of shelters.
Civil defence against a few atomic bombs might be feasible, civil defence of London in the face of multiple megaton warheads (they reckoned at least 8
x 1 megaton by 1967) certainly is not.

The evacuation of millions of people from the city as you have suggested would be highly impractical - and wherever they ended up they would be a soft
target indeed.

Yes, in theory a nation could pour a vast amount of resource into building shelters for some percentage of the population - if they happened to be in
them at the right time which is quite unlikely. But you would have to ask what the point of such an action would be and why anyone would undertake it
simply to have a slightly less terrible post-apocalypse.

The problem being that you can not deter a attacker with tens of thousand of nuclear weapons with a few hundred and ESPECIALLY not when they have a
national ABM defense system that were designed to operate against a American scale attack. Basically all those hundreds of British weapons would have
at best ensured the destruction of Moscow; a steep price to pay for the loss one one's entire country. Deterrence only works when you can scare the
other guy sufficiently to never act and to suggest that the the meager Britain could bring to the table effectively prevented the USSR from doing what
it wanted is entirely ridiculous.

- he's very good on the politics, economics and practicalities of shelters.
Civil defence against a few atomic bombs might be feasible, civil defence of London in the face of multiple megaton warheads (they reckoned at least 8
x 1 megaton by 1967) certainly is not.

I don't care for 'feasibility' when planes were not feasible not long ago. You can always find a few morons who don't believe things are possible
and if you wish to task them with the creation of arguments in defense of not defending a nation i am sure they can arrive at such conclusions.

The evacuation of millions of people from the city as you have suggested would be highly impractical - and wherever they ended up they would
be a soft target indeed.

Again presuming that they would be evacuated to unprepared locations? Why do you keep on insisting that no preparations should have been made
beforehand?

Yes, in theory a nation could pour a vast amount of resource into building shelters for some percentage of the population -

if they happened to be in them at the right time which is quite unlikely.

Why not? Why wouldn't there be time? Why presume a 'out of the blue' strike when such were the most unlikely of scenarios? Even when the USSR
placed medium range ballistic missiles in Cuba and the US had the capacity to respond with completely overwhelming means we did not get a nuclear war?
Why on earth would a out of the blue strike happen later on when forces where far more equal with advantages rather smaller?

But you would have to ask what the point of such an action would be and why anyone would undertake it simply to have a slightly less terrible
post-apocalypse.

Well if you can't see the point of survival then there really isn't much to say to you. Why would there be a apocalypse if 95% of the UK public
survived and had food for many years? What's apocalypic about that? You mean to suggest that anything but our modern standards of living is totally
unacceptable to you? Do you realise that the majority of the worlds citizens do not know where there food will be coming from even a few weeks from
now and that a billion are not so sure about tommorow or tonights meal? A few dozen megaton nuclear explosions over Britain ( provided the Uk defense
budget were applied to civil defenses for a decade) would still make Britain a far better place to live than most others.

But i suppose if my country were populated with defeatists such as yourself i might be tempted to leave them undefended as well. I mean who wants to
work with such people?

Yup and that basically means that a direct hit would have allowed far more contamination into the tunnel itself which would obviously not have made
the entire shelter unusable. How long between tests and who's to say that it didn't work when it was still new? Those stupid Swiss engineers....

Funny how we can make fission/fusion devices where micro second timing is required but we can't seem to dig holes in the ground and fill rooms with
food. Very peculiar indeed. Did you know that the Germans were producing food in underground shelters with artificial lighting and artificial soil
back in the early 40's? Right.....

Originally posted by Harlequin
was reading about a test in 1998 - it took 24 hpurs to shut the doors then , and they couldn`t get 20k beds available in the place , hence why it was
downgraded to between 10>15,000

24 hours is still plenty of time as you don't meet very many specialist who actually discuss 'bolt from the blue' nuclear wars. You don't just
start a nuclear war on a whim and the extended period of tensions ( at least days to just get strategic forces in order; reroute Ballistic missile
submarines, getting all naval ships out of harbor's etc) would very probably last much longer than that. Either way Switzerland were hardly a first
target so they would have gotten away with that mistake.

but even so - there are shelters for 95% of the population still.

And we all know those Swiss really ruined their massive industrial base to accomplish the task! Fascinating that we can send men into orbit and too
the moon safely and how some still wish to fall into disspair by claiming that we can't dig holes and store food as many lesser species of
animals/insects seem capable of. So much for common sense being common...

Originally posted by Harlequin
The UK would be largely unihabitble for at least a few years - the sheer level of radiation would put paid to the idea of rebuilding quickly - if you
draw a line on the south of london - and another around nortumbria - the bit inbetween *excluding most of wales* would be a `red ` zone , all the
industry , military bases and goverment are targets.

Targets for whom? Would the USSR have attacked a non-nuclear country with nuclear weapons if it chose not to cooperate with aggressive neighbours? Why
would those areas by rendered uninhabitable or do you mean uninhabitable in terms of preventing skin cancer or any fatalities? Inside or outside of
shelters?

think a population after 2 years of medival england to give you an idea.

Presuming that no food were kept stored, that everyone where standing around watching the nuclear explosions in the streets and that there was
absolutely no warning so some could watch from streets outside of major cities?

edit:the biggest advantage russia has is sheer size -

The biggest advantage Russia has is it national anti ballistic missile defenses operational ( admittedly with very, very limited capabilities at
first) since the mid 60s. Isn't the biggest advantage , independent of the size of the armed force, how well prepared it is to fight?

the USA can`t nuke everything , there are large tracts of land with nothing targeted for hundreds of miles - the same cannot be said for the
USA or in fact anywhere else (except AUS)

It would still take warheads to accomplish nuking those 'closer spaced' targets ( have you looked at the US recently?) so unless you factor in
fallout ( which will certainly kill only very few who's suitably prepared and trained ) the USSR has no capability to destroy the continental US with
blast and thermal damage alone. Given how massively unprepared US society is and the fact that the ABM defenses were largely disbanded in the late
60's the fact that a two thirds might die today is hardly surprising.

What strikes me most about these types of discussions is how people presume that unpreparedness to be evidence against it being possible instead of
learning from the long history of how nations become unprepared trough inaction and misdirection by their so called leaders.

Originally posted by Harlequin
The problem that is faced is the beta decay rate of the medium-lived by-products; those being 90sr , 131I and 137cs to name 3 (argueably the nastiest)
, and to counter the uptake of said elements into the plants - lime helps with strontium , but iodine and ceasium have there very own associated
problems.

I didn't propose that fighting a nuclear war would be good for us or that farming, in some areas, might not become exceedingly problematic and
expensive after. Admittedly all crops would not work well in such areas and it is up to us to find which crops/plants we should introduce to various
regions to best ensure productivity. I am sure someone did these experiments somewhere and maybe you would be interested to follow up on that.

whilst i do concur that 30 days is too short - given the beta decay for most medium-lived products is around 90% after 60 days , after that ,
time limited operations could begin (cleaning) whether by scrapping or ploughing the effected soil

Provided irrigation means are intact and the season/weather plays along.

edit:

yes a nuclear war is survivable - BUT , the powers that be have planned for one to go on and on , not like first strike second strike all over
- it would go on for days if not weeks - with potentially a city being hit in day 1 , being hit again on day 12;

Actually US planning does not make many if any provisions for a extended nuclear war given the way in which the US populace has been left undefended.
The USSR were first to deploy cold launch techniques ( with all the added problems) and their entire doctrine rests on the principle that a nuclear
war will go ( mobile missiles reloaded/refitted, stores of nuclear warheads) hence the necessity of protecting the industrial base and thus the
citizenry. I suppose they want a country to rule so they may protect their citizens based on just that but i would rather not be accused of trying to
'defend' them.

Second strikes have always been part of the planning but as the force levels grew even and the USSR surpassed US forces in both yield, range and
accuracy ( to say nothing of mobility) the means of retaining a credible second strike capacity shrunk. As second strikes would have been more limited
there is also the added problem of the surviving ABM defenses having a potentially much easier time of breaking up and or entirely defeating them.

so yes deep bunkers will help - but at the worst you must plan for an extended underground stay ,

Yes, planning for the worse is what you do and if that requires food storage for each person for a decade then you do that too. Considering the
ordeals people in past periods have dealt with ( and many still do today) the threats of nuclear war should and can be kept in perspective with those
who appreciate life enough to work and 'suffer' towards survival.

taking with you everything you need to rebuild from the ground up - water plants , electrical plants , all types of food stuff , millions of
gallons of diesel etc.

Potentially, yes. I mean a nation truly interested in survival would have long ago moved towards solar and wind power to ensure decentralization and
thus immunity from national power outages but since there wasn't profit in that for big business we stand to lose a great deal of capacity. As for
food stuffs the US and many other countries could produce vastly more food than they do today but since it's all for profit quantities are reduced to
create certain price levels thus allowing a few tens of thousands of people who can't 'pay' to starve to death each day. Countries such as the US
or Britain could have built food stores sufficient ( providing storage and measures to maintain it properly is somewhat harder) to last a decade if
not decades. Even MRE's ( you will need at most one a day, instead of three for those running around in fifty pounds of gear, if your occupying a
shelter ) sells for 7 bucks on Ebay and i'm confident that without Pentagon contractors that without the the novelty ( x3 price) and pentagon
contractors the uninitiated will learn to hate them long before their three year shelf life comes to a end.

But since 'we'( i presumed you were referring to me) are now just arguing for arguments sake you do not need to respond. I have always done my best
not to presume anything based on that alone; normally i am just happy to move on to the multitude of other posts that are begging for interventions.

Originally posted by Wembley
[That was my point- it lasts for a few weeks. Then what? Buy some more from abroad?

Well i suppose you decide how much you will need and then you make stockpiles accordingly individually or nationally? Wont this have the added affect
of offsetting oil supply manipulation?

It could start in minutes, and very nearly did in the 80's.

Please name a instance that we have become aware of.

Deliberately planning to fight a nuclear war would be total insanity. Nobody has even thought about that since Strangelove days.

For the unprepared mind many things seems to be insane and or impractical but since this is a state of mind and in no way proof of anything you will
have to do better than sharing your opinion with us.

The underground does not offer that much protection. You're dreaming if you think you can get large number of people into it, or that many
would come out alive.
It's not sealed or anything.

Not if it wasn't built with such eventualities in mind. With blast doors and shelter space leading from the main tunnels there is no reason why the
London or New york underground could not serve as a emergency shelter for those that could not be evacuated or better protected.

Now, in you fantasy world it mighjt all be 200 ft deep with a special air circulation systerm and supplies for hunjdreds of thousands...but
that's not reality.

Management Agency (FEMA), the Soviets have built at least 20,000
blast-resistant shelters to protect approximately 15 million people, or
roughly 10 percent of the people in cities of 25,000 or more. The FY 1981
Department of Defense Annual Report to the Congress noted that
"the Soviets will probably continue to emphasize the construction of
urban blast sheltering. If the current pace of construction is continued,
the number of people that can be sheltered will be roughly doubled in
1988." The Soviets apparently plan to evacuate and disperse the general
population to pre-assigned resettlement areas where they will be fed
and either provided with a fallout shelter or put to work building one.

The vast Soviet network of shelters and command facilities, under construction for four decades, was recently described in detail by Secretary of
Defense Frank Carlucci.The shelters are designed to house the entire Politburo, the Central Committee, and the key leadership of the Ministryof
Defense and the KGB. Some are located hundreds of yards beneath the surface, and are connected by secret subway lines,tunnels, and sophisticated
communications systems. "These facilities contradict in steel and concrete Soviet protestations that they share President Reagan's view that nuclear
war can never be won and must never be fought,"Carlucci said (Ariwna Republic, April 3, 1988). These facilities reveal that they are preparing
themselves for just the opposite." The shelters are also protected against chemical warfare agents, and stocked with sufficient supplies to allow the
leadership to survive and wage war for months.In contrast, the limited US shelter system begun in the 1950s has mostly been abandoned."To have
something comparable, we'd have to have facilities where we could put every governor, mayor, every Cabinet official, and our whole command structure
underground with subways running here and there," Carlucci said. "There's just no comparison between the two."

In the more traditional areas of strategic defense, Soviet military doctrine calls for passive and active defenses to act in conjunction to
ensure wartime survival. Physical hardening of military assets to make them more resistant to attack is an important passive defense technique. The
USSR has hardened its ICBM silos, launch facilities, and key command and control centers to an unprecedented degree. Much of the current US
retaliatory force would be ineffective against these hardened targets.

Soviet leaders and managers at all levels of the government and Communist Party are provided hardened alternate command posts located well away from
urban centers - in addition to many deep bunkers and blast shelters in Soviet cities. This comprehensive and redundant system, patterned after a
similar system designed for the Soviet Armed Forces, provides more than 1,500 hardened alternate facilities for more than 175,000 key Party and
government personnel throughout the USSR. In contrast, the US passive defense effort is far smaller and more limited; it is in no way comparable to
the comprehensive Soviet program.

Elaborate plans also have been made for the full mobilization of the national economy in support of the war effort. Reserves of vital materials are
maintained, many in hardened underground structures. Redundant industrial facilities are in active production. Industrial and other economic
facilities have been equipped with blast shelters for the work force, and detailed procedures have been developed for the relocation of selected
production capabilities. By planning for the survival of the essential work force, the Soviets hope to reconstitute vital production programs using
those industrial components that could be redirected or salvaged after an attack.

So yes, some nations did spend the required resources and considering the smaller GDP's and general lesser living standards it's funny that we
should argue that richer nations could not be far better prepared and defended.

But you're faced with much, much worse threats than that. The SS-18 is 20 megatons - and London would get more than one.

Some SS-18 versions are but they were the first types and have long, long ago been retired. Either way as you basically understand those later SS-18
versions had 10 750 KT warheads. My point isn't that weapons did not get more dangerous but basically that this took a great deal of time which would
have allowed the UK DECADES to prepare civil defenses before the USSR ever had the type of superiority that would have allowed it a NATO style
aggressive foreign policy. .

But nobody would be. The rich would be long gone; the poor would be refugees. International corporations and capital would do nothing. Few
people would be insane enough to keep supporting a government that allowed it to happen.

So you have changed your argument from there wont be many survivors to claiming that the survivors wont have any trust left in a government that
convinced them that there were no defenses? Why would they lose trust if they have like you been so fully indoctrinated in the first place?

We're not talking about Stalinist Russia here. Your country would be instantly converted into a radioactive wasteland, a bankrupt state with
millions of people needing medical help that did not exist and a large number of traumatised survivors. It would be a third-world country which the
great powers (like Brazil) might provide some aid to if you're lucky...

Not my country and while such things are quite possible as unprepared as Britain is today it never had to be that way.

Originally posted by Wembley
Makes no odds. There is a difference between mass fire and firestorm - Nagasaki had mass fires which are described above and the effect is still
lethal.

But only 15%-20% of the city were affected which is in fact surprising considering the building materials normally used in Japanese cities of the
time. The thermal effects are certainly going to start numerous fires but the blast and overpressure effects are going to put out the fires and spread
light flammable materials far and wide. Modern cities are far better able to resist fires given their sprawling nature and comparative non congested
nature.

That amount of thermal energy will cause everything to burn, and good-bye city and anyone in it.

You could just as well claim that the skies will go dark ( 'nuclear winter', heheh) or that the planet will explode for all the reason your
employing in reaching these types of conclusions.

This gigantic fire would quickly increase in intensity and in minutes generate ground winds of hurricane force with average air
temperatures well above the boiling point of water (212 degrees F). The fire would then burn everywhere at this intensity for three to six hours,
producing a lethal environment over a total area of approximately 40 to 65 square miles - an area about 10 to 15 times larger than that incinerated by
the 15 kT atomic bomb which destroyed Hiroshima."

How is the fires going to be sustained given blast effects and the general prompt destruction of light easily combustible materials?

You think they won't be damaged by that sort of blast?
You should read Kurt Vonnegut's book, Slaughterhouse 5, on the Dresden bombing which he witnessed first-hand. They had 'corpse mines' to retirve
the bodies from shelters.

I will stick to physics if you don't mind. As i described there is not much ( i think anything ) you can do in close proximity to the fireball radius
and if such a explosion takes place at ground level no bunker or underground structure would survive. How much damage underground blast and shock
effects will do to shelters a bit further away is very much a engineering and investment question with more money being spent on reinforcement and
shock protecting saving lives ever closer to the impact site. Obviously city centers might not be the best place to be and that's why it would make
most sense to only keep vital emergency workers at likely aim points. But yes, many people will die.

Cities can only be rebuilt if there is some external assistance. After a nuclear war there wonlt be any. You also have a bit of an issue with
radiation.

Cities are not of much functional use in production economy and they are largely the relics of a bygone era where transportation proved to be far more
expensive than now. The services that people moved to cities for in the first place can now be found in even rural areas so cities are more likely to
be 'salvaged' for their remaining industrial capacity than to be rebuilt for the sake of the efficiency that has become a massive liability in the
modern age. As for the perpetual screams about this doomsday radiation i can but say that people who are so terrified should have had the largest food
stores by now.

Defending Soviet Russia with it's millions of square miles, large rural population and totalitarian government is one thing. Defending
Britain would be another story entirely.

Russia is only twice the size of the USA and in terms of arable land it actually has one third less most of which is in European Russian hardly making
their situation easier.

I would conclude with closing though but i think i have repeated myself often enough for right minded people to have figured out the general gist
here.

StellarX, take some time out and read Steve Fox's excellent history of UK Home Defence nuclear attack planning, entitled - 'Struggle For Survival'.
Meticulously researched over the past ten years, it destroys many of the common misconceptions and outright myths which surround the UK Government's
Top Secret nuclear war plans.

Its available to be read online for free.

----------------------

The 1955 Defence White Paper said that a future war would result in a “struggle for survival of the grimmest kind”. This book examines the way in
which the government in Britain prepared for that struggle during the Cold War and the work done, often in complete secrecy by the civil and home
defence planners at all levels.

Contents

File 1 The Death of Bristol The effects of nuclear war - the civil defence response

File 2 Any Measure Not Amounting to Actual Combat What is Civil and Home Defence? – lessons from World War II - The Civil Defence Corps
– Central Government and Regional War Rooms

File 3 A Difference in Kind – The Megaton Weapon Central Government in War – the Strath Report – response to the H bomb

You think they won't be damaged by that sort of blast?
You should read Kurt Vonnegut's book, Slaughterhouse 5, on the Dresden bombing which he witnessed first-hand. They had 'corpse mines' to retirve
the bodies from shelters.

I will stick to physics if you don't mind.

In that case you will never have any idea what you're dealing with.
It's the human effects that matter, not abstrtact physics, as Vonnegut graphically shows.
The Dr Strangelove approach of writing off a few megadeaths in inhuman and unworkable.

Obviously city centers might not be the best place to be and that's why it would make most sense to only keep vital emergency workers at
likely aim points.

But that's the entire South of England...

Cities are not of much functional use in production economy and they are largely the relics of a bygone era where transportation proved to be far more
expensive than now. .

...but Britain is largely a service economy, not a production one. There are not many people in production. And London is the heart of the economy.
What would be left exactly?

Russia is only twice the size of the USA and in terms of arable land it actually has one third less most of which is in European Russian
hardly making their situation easier.

The US has a population density of 29 per square Km; Russia has less than a third of that at 9.

Here in the UK the population density is 246 per square kilometer and a nuclear war would be proportionately far, far more devastating.

Originally posted by Wembley
In that case you will never have any idea what you're dealing with.

Right cause we all know that nuclear weapons are more likely to kill my psychological impact. Bah.

It's the human effects that matter, not abstrtact physics, as Vonnegut graphically shows.

Then you should make a thread about that effects on the human mind and or social interaction inside bunkers.

The Dr Strangelove approach of writing off a few megadeaths in inhuman and unworkable.

Stop watching movies and start reading some books. As at least a few sources indicates the USSR were doing a great deal to reduce casualties to far
smaller percentages than they managed to sustain during world war two.

But that's the entire South of England...

If the entire South of England is a city center ( which it isn't as a dictionary would reveal) and the Russians wished to treat them in that way they
would have had to expend several hundred 550-750 KT warheads on just the South of England.

...but Britain is largely a service economy, not a production one. There are not many people in production. And London is the heart of the
economy. What would be left exactly?

Well that's my point! Service economies are subject to far greater dangers if their preparation levels are not very high at the outbreak of the war.
In such economies war materials and food stuffs can not be produced so easily and famine and critical shortages are more likely to occur. As i have
repeatedly pointed out the 'higher' income levels and taxation should certainly have allowed for far higher expenditures on civil defenses than in
comparatively poorer countries such as Indian and China.

The US has a population density of 29 per square Km; Russia has less than a third of that at 9.

So what? What are you going to do with frozen/mountainous country any ways? It's these type of insistence on pointless 'facts' that exposes the
fact that your just here to insist on the end of the world no matter what i may say or attempt prove of.

Here in the UK the population density is 246 per square kilometer and a nuclear war would be proportionately far, far more devastating.

Everything is also closer together giving a peacetime boost to efficiency; don't need to build as much roads, railways, tunnels and can invest such
resources in preparation where larger countries have to invest it in basic service delivery and communication. There is no logical reason for you to
persist at this attempt to find a reason why you can excuse those in your government that failed to invest in your safety and ultimate chance for
survival.

Originally posted by zero lift
StellarX, take some time out and read Steve Fox's excellent history of UK Home Defence nuclear attack planning, entitled - 'Struggle For Survival'.

And with such a title we can obviously expect him to be a problem solver writing as he was back in 1955. Nothing has obviously changed since then and
even the 1960's the Warsaw pact would have had to use every and any warhead on the United States, not Britain.

Meticulously researched over the past ten years, it destroys many of the common misconceptions and outright myths which surround the UK
Government's Top Secret nuclear war plans.

Its available to be read online for free.

Wasn' hard to find and he admits freely that even the Strath report indicated that measures could be taken to survive and continue to fight the war.

Despite the scale of the devastation Strath thought the country could survive and recommended large scale plans for public shelter and
evacuation. The idea of requiring all new buildings to incorporate fall-out shelters was however quickly dismissed on grounds of cost and the
problems that would result from older properties not having this protection. Evacuation was however considered and resulted in a plan to evacuate 11½
million people in the “priority classes”, mainly children and their mothers from the cities. The workers were expected to stay behind to ensure
that the economy continued although some suggestions were made that this would be unrealistic and there were some ideas that plans could be made for
the city workers to leave the towns at night and return in the morning – until presumably they were attacked and destroyed.

So basically he suggested what the USSR chose to do DESPITE the massive cost implications. Basically it was turned down because the UK government
would rather build tanks, ships and fighters than shelters.
----------------------

The 1955 Defence White Paper said that a future war would result in a “struggle for survival of the grimmest kind”. This book examines the
way in which the government in Britain prepared for that struggle during the Cold War and the work done, often in complete secrecy by the civil and
home defence planners at all levels.

Oh so they did prepare? Why did the government think they could survive intact? Funny how there is always enough money to save a few tens of thousands
who aren't smart or willing enough to make survival for the vast majority a possibility?

Read three chapters and skimmed a few more. To say that i have seen all this before would be giving the writer too much credit for originality. Just
about ever misbegotten misrepresentation imagined is peddled here so as to best discourage preparing the necessary defenses. Again all your doing is
attempting to defend the notion that war is unimaginable ( as is ever next world war) despite the fact that we keep fighting them with clear winners
and losers. I don't think this will change no matter how much devastation results short of blowing the planet to smithereens in which case the
struggle will continue on the Moon and or Mars.

I have so far avoided discussing all the active defense measures that can be taken but since people such as yourself wish to insist that every weapon
launched will reach it's target it may be just about time to start dispelling that myth. Maybe if only a few explodes you would take a less defeatist
attitude towards all of this?

If the entire South of England is a city center ( which it isn't as a dictionary would reveal) and the Russians wished to treat them in that
way they would have had to expend several hundred 550-750 KT warheads on just the South of England.

You keep evading my original question about how much a 20 MT warhead on London would do. And the indications are that there would be a lot more
warheads than that airmed at Southern England

The US has a population density of 29 per square Km; Russia has less than a third of that at 9.

So what?

So your claim above about Russia only having half the populartiond ensity of the US is wrong.

Originally posted by StellarX
The problem being that you can not deter a attacker with tens of thousand of nuclear weapons with a few hundred

Why not? The point of MAD is that once you pass a cerain level, it doesn;t make any difference how many the other guy has.

Yes, in theory a nation could pour a vast amount of resource into building shelters for some percentage of the population -

All. Something Switzerland did. Why can't Britain?

Well -
1) Economics - Switzerland is richer and spends less ond efence
2) Culture - the Swiss have a long tradition of civil defence; you can't create it out of the blue
3) Geology (a lot of British homes are built on flood plains - no cellars!)

Why presume a 'out of the blue' strike when such were the most unlikely of scenarios?

Because the point of a first strike is that it should arrive out of the blue.

As for nuclear accidents that could have resulted in launches, several could have resulted in an apocalypse with a few minutes warning - www.pbs.org...

Originally posted by zero lift
StellarX, take some time out and read Steve Fox's excellent history of UK Home Defence nuclear attack planning, entitled - 'Struggle For Survival'.

And with such a title we can obviously expect him to be a problem solver writing as he was back in 1955.

What are you on about - 'Struggle For Survival' was published in the past couple of years, not 1955?

Nothing has obviously changed since then and even the 1960's the Warsaw pact would have had to use every and any warhead on the United
States, not Britain.

From 1949 onwards, the US considered the UK to be the 'biggest aircraft carrier in the world'; that's why they based much of their strategic and
tactical nuclear threat capability on airbases throughout the UK.

Then there's the fact that the UK operated their own retaliatory nuclear threat.

Couple that with the blindingly obvious fact (but unfortunately not obvious to StellarX), that the UK was the main rendezvous point for the massive
number of US service personnel (who were to reinforce the European battelfronts), and I think you'll agree that the Soviet Union would have allocated
a significant number of their warheads to UK targets.

And then in the eighties, the US added more UK targets by basing their mobile cruise missile launch systems in the UK. In effect, this meant that the
Soviets would have had to blanket southern England with nuclear warheads to ensure that they destroyed this capability.

Meticulously researched over the past ten years, it destroys many of the common misconceptions and outright myths which surround the UK
Government's Top Secret nuclear war plans.

Its available to be read online for free.

Wasn' hard to find and he admits freely that even the Strath report indicated that measures could be taken to survive and continue to fight
the war.

I'm not surprised, I gave you a link.

The 1955 Defence White Paper said that a future war would result in a “struggle for survival of the grimmest kind”. This book
examines the way in which the government in Britain prepared for that struggle during the Cold War and the work done, often in complete secrecy by the
civil and home defence planners at all levels.

Oh so they did prepare? Why did the government think they could survive intact? Funny how there is always enough money to save a few tens of
thousands who aren't smart or willing enough to make survival for the vast majority a possibility?

The short answer is that they didn't think they would survive intact - if you read the book you'll discover that fact!

By 1963 it had become obvious that nowhere in the UK could be considered safe from nuclear attack (the same fact was dawning on the Soviets and the
US); all that a Government could do was to disperse across the UK during the Precautionary Period and hope that the few survivors would somehow manage
to accrete at specific locations.

And as for your BS about the UK Government providing protected accommodation for "tens of thousands" - care to provide proof that the number was
that high; or did you just pluck it out of the air like so much of your evidence?

To say that i have seen all this before would be giving the writer too much credit for originality. Just about ever misbegotten
misrepresentation imagined is peddled here so as to best discourage preparing the necessary defenses. Again all your doing is attempting to defend the
notion that war is unimaginable ( as is ever next world war) despite the fact that we keep fighting them with clear winners and losers. I don't think
this will change no matter how much devastation results short of blowing the planet to smithereens in which case the struggle will continue on the
Moon and or Mars.

Your arrogance knows no bounds, does it?

Don't be so quick to dismiss facts which go against your opinion StellarX; read the entire book and you might realise that your position is based on
very shaky foundations.

I would add that much of the source material has only been recently declassified, hence there is a mountain of info in the book to which you will
never have previously had access.

I have so far avoided discussing all the active defense measures that can be taken but since people such as yourself wish to insist that
every weapon launched will reach it's target it may be just about time to start dispelling that myth. Maybe if only a few explodes you would take
a less defeatist attitude towards all of this?

Stellar

Ooh goody!

Will it be up to your previously excellent standards (NBC suits protect the wearer from gamma-emitting radioactive fallout)?

theres 3 bases in the entire sout east UK - most of the bases are in fact in the midlands or east anglia

southampten is the south , not south east , and farnborough is near directly in a straight line above it - biggen hill isn`t an active base but was
once ;

which is why they say teh south east has a better chance of survival - lack of targets BUT you would have fallout from london , southampten , dover or
even france , depending on the direction of the wind

Fair point Harlequin, but I was responding to this comment - "even the 1960's the Warsaw pact would have had to use every and any warhead on
the United States, not Britain."

Back then the USAF still maintained numerous airbases - both SAC and 3rd Air Force. Among them were Upper Heyford, Greenham Common, Brize Norton,
Fairford, Mildenhall, Lakenheath, and Sculthorpe. Presumably the aircraft from many of these airbases could in be relocated to dispersal sites across
the UK in time of war, just as the RAF would have done with their V Forces.

As for the present - I suspect that as the predominant wind in the UK is from the south-west, your best bet would be to hunker down near Lands End
(but watch out for the radon).

This thread is pure speculation from start to finish because, in all honesty, most posters don't have a clue about what they are talking about.

First off it does not matter if you use a so called KGB suitcase nuke, a free flight nuclear iron bomb [1945 era] a nuclear armed Cruise missile or an
ICBM. It does not matter whether you use a nuclear device which delivers a yield measured in Kilotons or Megatons.

Excepting structural damage which will be greater for more powerful the weapon, the results would still be the same! The target city would, to all
intents and purposes, be destroyed.

Why?

Simply put, just because the fireball or shock wave does not incinerate or blow down all the buildings or kill everybody within the city boundaries,
it will cause enough damage to the city's infrastructure and services and the radiation count will be that far off the meter, that any rescue attempt
by outside agencies will be doomed to failure from the start.

Please bear in mind that the unprotected human body can only withstand up to about 350 - 400 Rads, Rontgens, CentiGreys or whatever
for an hour before the effects of the radiation are irreversible.

Even when wearing CBRN IPE or a MOPP Suit, personnel should not operate within such a heavily contaminated environment for more than a single
hour before undergoing thorough CBRN Decontamination.

When targetting a large city, the assailant would [probably] use a thermo-nuclear device. In other words, a Hydrogen device because this type of
weapon is considered to be the most destructive of all nuclear devices within the nuclear arsenal.

Consider this. You want to target Moscow, London, Washington, Paris or New York. All are very large cities that have several things in common - old
and modern buildings often crammed in to limited space; rivers and lakes; wide open parks.

What is your objective? Do you just want to kill the inhabitants and make the city uninhabitable? If so, a Neutron device detonated above the city.

If you want to partialy destroy the city - say the centre including most government buildings, then a device detonated as a ground burst will do the
trick.

Having said that, if your aim is to kill as many people as possible, destroy some or most of the buildings and irradiate the surrounding area
for a considerable length of time, then my advice would be to detonate a 1.5 Kiloton Hydrogen device as an airburst about 15 kilometers above the
city, preferrably on an overcast day when there is a slight drizzle.

Such a device is best detonated below the cloud base because, as the advert states, "It does exactly what it says on the tin!"

Incidentaly, those of you expousing theories about where it would be safe to live in the UK following a Nuclear attack, then I have some very bad news
for you.

According to Biological tests conducted by the RAF during to early 60's [during which aircraft were flown up and down the east coast of the UK,
spraying harmless vectors] and given the prevailling winds blowing across the UK, the safest place to live after an attack would be the Outer
Hebrides, Mull and Islay, not to mention Anglesey and Snowdonia.

Originally posted by Wembley
You keep evading my original question about how much a 20 MT warhead on London would do. And the indications are that there would be a lot more
warheads than that airmed at Southern England

And what about all the other questions i didn't 'evade'? Why is it that you can just shift the argument to whatever doesn't require you to admit
previous mistakes? A twenty megaton warhead used against London is going to cause as much devastation as the 10 750 Kt warheads the SS-18 were
formally equipped with before some in the disarmament crowd decided to restrict warheads instead of megatonage. Either way active defenses is of far
more use against single warhead missiles ( even with countermeasures) than they would be against Mirv'ed weapons.

So your claim above about Russia only having half the populartiond ensity of the US is wrong.

I believe i said half the people in twice the area which would have had my estimation at around 1/4 of population density. According to wiki it's 8.3
for Russia and 31 for the US making my original estimation quite accurate.

[Quote]No, I'm shooting the person who originated the message

Not everyone ( certainly not those in planning circles ) believed that nuclear wars could not be won and that large majorities of citizens would die.

Originally posted by Wembley
Why not? The point of MAD is that once you pass a cerain level, it doesn;t make any difference how many the other guy has.

The problem with that theory is that Britain never had anywhere near enough to deter possible Russian aggression with the US nuclear arsenal. The fact
is that Britain could have deterred Russian aggression more logically and more cheaply by not allowing NATO airbases, anchorage or bases UNTIL such a
time as NATO and or the US treasury made sufficient funds available to build up British civil defenses to levels where it could sustain the British
population without a dependence on above ground activities in the first weeks or months. Britain could basically have done what France did by leaving
NATO altogether but instead it chose to endanger it's population by allowing foreign airbases near population centers as well as directing critical
funds towards a independent nuclear arm instead of towards the means to show that Britain was interested in self defense first. The British government
sold out the British people just like they did in the war before.

Well -
1) Economics - Switzerland is richer and spends less ond efence

Switzerland is not richer by most any means of comparison especially so in industry. To suggest that Britain had lesser means to defend itself is
laughable in the face of aircraft carriers and ballistic missile submarines. Is there any way you could at least appear to be reasonable so as not
make me a look like a idiot for engaging in discussion with you?

2) Culture - the Swiss have a long tradition of civil defence; you can't create it out of the blue

'Culture'? Are you joking? The Swiss have a culture of building underground shelters for long duration wars involving aircraft and nuclear weapons?
Are you one of those people who believe in ancient high tech civilization or what are you on about?

3) Geology (a lot of British homes are built on flood plains - no cellars!)

Then you build community air raid shelters above ground; with proper sloping and ground cover the effect is much the same even if it's going to be a
bit more expensive. It's funny that your argument for a lack of British civil defense comes down to bad civil planning which happened to be my point
from the start. Well done for illustrating my point so ingeniously!

Because the point of a first strike is that it should arrive out of the blue.

And because you want to surprise the enemy they will be surprised? That's very funny....

As for nuclear accidents that could have resulted in launches, several could have resulted in an apocalypse with a few minutes warning -www.pbs.org...

Accidental first strikes then? Basically the one side prepared to launch a all out first strike by secretly preparing it's weapons and then waiting
for something 'odd' to happen so as to have a excuse after the dust had cleared? Do you realise that non of those incidents ( beside the Cuban
missile crisis which was a slow escalation; as it obviously would be ) had anything to do with a first strike and logically did not lead to attacks or
counter attacks because absolutely no other preparations could be observed? Do you understand that a first strike 'out of the blue' would have meant
that you wrote off all naval assets in harbor, all troops concentrations in peace time bases, all air bases and much of your aerial assets for lack of
time to disperse them and much of your industrial base for lack of proper preparation? Don't you understand that a first strike would be last gasp
type effort and thus a open admission of defeat?

If you wish we can discuss each of those incidents in detail has i have in the past collected information on each incident to show that non ever got
close to starting a nuclear war. Nuclear wars by design can't start suddenly( when one of your missiles is fired by accident you are very much
exposed by being completely unprepared in most regards ) and both sides concentrated immense efforts on safeguarding launch control and general
communication channels so as to ensure that no accidents could take place. As is evident from the historic record non did and for pretty obvious
reasons.

Frankly i am more disappointed than anything else that you wish to maintain that civil defenses could not have been successfully implemented as even
the worse proponents of nuclear doom admitted. MAD was a political tool to allow imperialist nations to build up means to attack others ( 'we can't
defend ourselves any ways; lets attack people') instead of listening to the people and defending them by building hospitalised, roads and general
infrastructure that could serve so well to keep a country functioning after the outbreak of even a nuclear war.

Incidentaly, those of you expousing theories about where it would be safe to live in the UK following a Nuclear attack, then I have some very bad news
for you.

According to Biological tests conducted by the RAF during to early 60's [during which aircraft were flown up and down the east coast of the UK,
spraying harmless vectors] and given the prevailling winds blowing across the UK, the safest place to live after an attack would be the Outer
Hebrides, Mull and Islay, not to mention Anglesey and Snowdonia.

[edit on 23-10-2008 by fritz]

A very valid point Fritz.

Though I must make it clear that, although RAF aircraft were used in these experiments (aka the Biological Warfare Large Area Coverage concept or
LAC), the actual field trials were conducted by military scientists from the Chemical Defence Experimental Establishment (CDEE), Porton
Down.

Also, they didn't just fly up and down the east coast of England (see my avatar) - their track depended on the prevailing wind conditions at the
time. The trials operational area is shown in the recently declassified map above, as is the aircraft's track (A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H).

As you can see, normally the aircraft flew along a track just offshore of England and Wales, spraying massive quantities of a BW simulant which was
carried onshore by the wind and the resulting huge aerosol was sampled at numerous location as across England and Wales.

Trials result proved that an area of between 10,000 and 14,000 square miles could be contaminated by a single aircraft flying a single sortie!

Most importantly, it must be recognised that these experiments did not use 'harmless vectors', they used a known hazardous chemical compound -
Zinc Cadmium sulphide (ZnCds).

Between 1953-1964, Porton Down scientists repeatedly sprayed ZnCds over populated areas of England and Wales from a variety of sources: ships,
aircraft, Land Rovers, and memorably from their clandestine spraying vehicle - a specially converted 1 Ton Morris Van.

The current total number of ZnCds experiments stands at 141!

As you quite rightly said, Fritz, the results of these trials prove that, given the right sort of meteorological conditions, radioactive fall-out
particles between 1-5 microns in size would easily cause contamination across the UK.

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